Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Brrrrrr. Our snow arrived this afternoon, and while I have attempted to get the dog further than the garden gate, he has flatly refused, and in fact on one occasion refused to even go out of the back door 🙄 I don't blame him - it's like the inside of a snow globe, and he's not got much fur. He's back inside now, curled up on my hot water bottle 😂 I've been pottering about and done my massive blog post recapping the whole year. I do enjoy looking back on them each year, but it does take forever 😂 Not quite sure what to do with myself now. Mr Cheery won't be back til at least 8, and probably later - hopefully the worst of the snow chaos will have passed by then. I don't want a massive flurry of activity, but a little bit would be nice...

 * text wood chip man to warn him about the snow 

* hang wet washing up

* put dry washing away 

* put another load on (we ended up with quite a backlog of bedding while the builders were here as there wasn't really anywhere to dry it)

* make something healthy for tea - I've got some sliced boiled potatoes to use up but don't really want another frittata.

* spend five minutes clearing stuff off my old desk in the music room 

* do some yoga

That'll probably do for a list, but if the mood takes me, there are some other things I could gently potter with:

 * bit of kitchen painting! (Too dark for second coat of bedroom ceiling, but first coat onto plaster will be ok)

* happy wheel

* banks/YNAB 

* order some sticky plastic stuff to protect the bedroom carpet when I'm oiling the skirting boards 

* see if there's a film I'd like to see that Mr Cheery won't be interested in

 Right, off we go!

(Edit - don't know what happened to the formatting there, hopefully it's better now!)

beanielou

Happy Friday 

chicker

I hope you had a productive afternoon Cheery and found some time to relax. Also hope Mr Cheery made it home in the snow.

My dogs don't like to go out in the rain let alone snow! Also totally with you on not wanting to adopt a dog...and I've got two!

Chicker 🙂

savingholmes

Glad Mr Cheery slept at his sisters.

Cheery_Daff

Afternoon MSE chums

Well, I had a restful and reasonably productive day yesterday, and made a nice, but simple, tea - fried up onion, garlic, mushroom, peppers and butter beans, cracked a couple of eggs over the top, and when they'd set a bit, grated a bit of cheese on top and put it all under the grill. I ate half and Mr Cheery had the rest when he finally got home. 

Today we have had our first cafe trip of the year! I had breakfast before I went, Mr Cheery had toast there, and we used £9.35 worth of our vouchers. Didn't have a second cuppa, so plenty of vouchers left. 

We also took the bar stools back for a refund, so that £90 should be hitting the bank at some point, and we'll look out for some others over the next few weeks, hopefully second hand. 

We picked up some bits to take to Mr Cheery's dad's tomorrow, and I'm assigning those to a different section of the budget - I want to keep track of our 'normal' spending for uber frugal January, and I want to make sure he's got what he needs without too much worrying about costs - it's not much but will mess up my household budget!)

I put a load of washing on this morning, so I'll hang that up in a bit - most of the last load is dry now so I can put that away. I also booked a PT session at the gym for Thursday evening, and swimming for Friday morning

We need to get together some bits we've got here to take with us tomorrow - ideally I want to do that today rather than at 8.30 in the morning but we'll see how the day goes. I also want to make some food to take with us so we don't end up with a supermarket sandwich. 

I've done a bit of MB today - down £34.24! Rubbish! January's total is now £57, pah. Let's hope it turns round again!

The dog has been for a longish walk (and a few short ones) - I'll take him out again in a bit. Mr Cheery said one of the chickens looks a bit off colour, so I'll check on her - although the vets isn't open until Monday now anyway. Sigh. 

Right, a list for the rest of the day: 

* clean out chicken house and put some tonic stuff in their water
* take dog for another walk while it's not raining
* put dry washing away
* hang up wet washing
* get stuff ready to take tomorrow
* make space in car for dog crate (in fact I might just put the crate in tonight as we're not using it in the house anyway)
* make cous cous salad with some roast veg and chick peas - enough to take tomorrow and have some left over for Monday's lunch
* plan meals for the week
* reply to counsellor about session on Tuesday


That'll probably do for a list. Want to make sure I have time for a nice sit down (and possibly another bath as well).

rtandon27

Love a good plan Cheery!

Don't forget that rest is just a important as doing so that plan of a long bath will nicely balance you out!

savingholmes

Sounds like your weekend is quite full on. Glad you got to have a break at the cafe - and with guilt free vouchers no less.

Cheery_Daff

Thank you both - don't worry, I'm not exactly running at super speed today 😂 and yesterday was pretty restful too. Tomorrow will be a different matter but hopefully I'm relatively well rested in preparation.

Washing is hung up, and the other lot put away. I've chopped a load of veg to go in the cous cous, and made a batch of pizza dough in the bread maker - that's currently proving in a low oven (I won't say rising - the yeast went out of date in 2017 and last time I used it there wasn't much rising 😂😂)

Dog has been for a walk, and in a minute I'll tuck the chickens into bed, then get the pizza rolled out and in the oven, along with the tray of veg, and put the water on the cous cous. 

I've not done the car yet (clearly should have done it in the daylight as we don't have any outside lights here) but I've emailed the counsellor, and have a pile of stuff ready for tomorrow.

Getting there, and still plenty of the evening left 😊

Very ready for the dog to go home - my hips are SO sore after being on the bouncy sofa bed for a fortnight. Never have I appreciated our firm mattress so much! 😮 I think we may need to replace it at some point - Mr Xheery bought it about 20 years ago at least, and it's starting to dip ever so slightly in the middle... No more big expenses until the savings are topped up though, so we'll turn it round/over when we move rooms. I'm sure after the sofa bed it will feel as solid as a slab of stone anyway 😂😂

pinkypig

You sound busy!  Glad you’re making time for a bath, especially those daytime ones. They are the best 😀
I hope Mr Cheery Snr is recovered and back home with his dog very soon xx 

Cheery_Daff

Thanks PP. Mr Cheery Snr is home already, and work is ongoing on getting his house into a more appropriate state. We're going tomorrow and taking the dog back (although if Mr Cheery can't get a dog flap installed in the stupid PVC door he might be coming back with us - let's hope not!!)

Pizza cooked, and I had enough dough to do two, so I did. Ate one, and I'll have the other for tea when I get back tomorrow. Definitely need some new yeast - these were both soggy and unrisen, and I couldn't get them to dry out before the top burned 🙄 so it'll only be me eating those! 

Three or four batches of cous cous made too, so that'll do a few work lunches. And I used the whole carton of passatta in the pizza sauce, so there's loads of that left - I defrosted too much spinach for the pizzas so I've added the leftover to the sauce, and that will do as a topping for pasta later in the week. 

Feeling quite excited about food at the minute - the novelty of a working kitchen hasn't worn off yet!! 😂 

The only food we've bought this year has been milk. Delighted with this - we'd got into a dreadful habit of shopping almost every day, which Mr Cheery prefers but which I can't abide.

We will need to go soon though. We've only got oranges left in the fruit bowl, and the only fresh veg we have is a bag of new potatoes, some onions, half a bag of sprouts, and a quarter of a cucumber. Got plenty of frozen spinach, and frozen butternut squash chunks, and frozen blueberries, and there's most of a tin of pineapple in the fridge, but we'll need a top up of fresh stuff at some point this week, and might add in a bit of dairy (and some yeast 😂😂)

Impressed at how well we're doing. It wasn't like we had loads of Christmas leftovers - we never over-cater at Christmas, and the only visitors we had were my sister and family - we had pizza, so I did get extra normal cheese and peppers etc, it wasn't anything unusual.

The Christmas cake has gone from the freezer now (note how I worded that to make it sound like it wasn't me who ate all of it?!) 😂 the biscuits are finished, we had one small box of chocolates which are now gone, so I think that's all the indulgent stuff out of the way.

Right, heading for another bath. Not collected everything for tomorrow but we've got most of it, and will have to sort the car in the morning.